Egypt has finished building its New Suez Canal, its overseer said on Wednesday, a project President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi sees as a symbol of national pride and a major chance to stimulate an economy suffering double-digit unemployment.

The army led the work, which began 11 months ago, on the $8-billion canal, flanking the existing, 145-year-old waterway and part of a larger undertaking to expand trade along the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

The Suez Canal is a vital source of hard currency for Egypt, particularly since the 2011 uprising that scared off tourists and foreign investment.

"We have finished work on time and even before the specified time," retired Admiral Mohab Mameesh, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, said at a news conference.

Al-Sisi had ordered that the canal be completed within a year.

The new waterway will be officially unveiled at a lavish event to be attended by Sisi and foreign dignitaries on August 6.

The existing canal earns Egypt around $5 billion per year. The new canal, which will allow two-way traffic of larger ships, is supposed to increase revenues by 2023 to $15 billion. It will reduce navigation time for ships to 11 hours from about 22.

The government also plans to build an international industrial and logistics hub near the Suez Canal that it expects will eventually make up about a third of the Egyptian economy.

Mameesh said work on a new side channel connecting East Port Said to the Mediterranean would begin on August 7.

The channel will allow smaller vessels in the Mediterranean direct access to East Port Said around the clock instead of just eight hours a day.

Klaus Holm Laursen, managing director of Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT), the company partially financing the project, told Reuters on Tuesday the project would allow vessels to enter and exit East Port Said, and divert traffic from the canal's entrance.

SCCT is 55 per cent owned by APM Terminals, part of the Maersk group, and is paying $15 million into the project which a senior Suez Canal Authority source said would cost $60 million to build.

"The waterway will benefit the entire east port, not just SCCT. You can't have a seaport without having any ships; it's like having an airport without a runway," Laursen said.

Egypt plans to build the new side channel after it unveils a new Suez Canal next month and hopes it will be one of the first projects in a planned international industrial and logistics hub to be built around the canal.

A Suez Canal Authority source told Reuters the new channel would be 9.5 km (6 miles) long, 18.5 metres deep, and 250 metres wide and take around seven months to build.

Currently every vessel that comes through East or West Port Said has to be coordinated with the Suez Canal convoy.

"Since Egypt wants to have as many ships as possible in the convoy because the Suez Canal is where it makes most money, this does not leave many hours free for sailing in and out of the East or West ports," Laursen said.

SCCT's agreement with the Egyptian government was updated in 2007 to require the company to pay $15 million into the side channel's construction. SCCT paid half the amount in 2010 and will pay the rest upon the project's completion, which was initially scheduled for 2012, Laursen said.

An APM Terminals spokesman in The Hague confirmed the terms of the payment. – Reuters